Monday, December 2, 2013

There are many analysts whom you see oftenly coming up on screens with their stock picks and P. N. Vijay is one of them.

P. N. Vijay was confident about his pick when he announced Zylog Systems as his multibagger stock pick on 10th February 2012. “This is a stock that Obama will like“, he said with pride in his voice. “Its a bit different from all other I. T. companies like Infosys and TCS“, he said. “It has an excellent billing rate of $58 per hour“, he added.

P. N. Vijay was also impressed by Zylog’s performance in FY 2011-12 and he expected it to close the year with an EPS of about Rs. 100. “Zylog will get re-rated and has a price target of Rs. 1100 (Rs. 550 after the stock split) in 12 months“, P. N. Vijay said.

On that date, 10th February 2012, Zylog was quoting Rs. 245 (adjusted for split). After hitting a series of lower circuit breakers, Zylog is trading at Rs. 14 today with a whopping loss of 94.3% from the price of recommendation!

Interestingly, after P. N. Vijay’s stock recommendation, the stock soared to a high of Rs. 328 on 2nd May 2012 and went on to touch Rs. 340 on 9th July 2012 in the wake of the stock split announcement but later it started hitting lower circults and stock price came down to Rs. 120 on 2nd Nov'12.

Also interestingly, P. N. Vijay disclosed that he was Zylog’s “financial adviser“. Did P. N. Vijay have no inkling at all that something was not right with Zylog or its promoters?

Was this a classic “Pump & Dump” story?

The problem appears to be that the promoter company, Sthithi Insurance Services Pvt Ltd, has pledged 54.41% of the shares held by it (22% of the total promoter holding). Disaster struck all of a sudden on 18th October when Karvy Financial Services suddenly dumped 3.73 lakh shares at the price of Rs. 226 per share. Apparently, Karvy had made a margin call which had not been honoured by the promoter. That heavy selling triggered off the lower circuit filter. After that, every single day was met by heavy selling, either by Karvy or by the other lenders of the pledged shares, including JM Financial.

Nervous investors, scared out of their wits, also tried to bail out, worsening the situation. Though Sripriya Srikanth, of the promoter group, valiantly bought 1,78,200 shares, it was of no avail in stemming the steep slide that the stock suffered.

Sudarshan Venkatraman, Zylog’s Chairman & CEO, issued a statement last year that attributed the stock price fall to “panic” created by speculators. “Promoters and large institutions have increased their share holding over the past two weeks, coinciding with the fall in the share price.” He said there was no adverse impact on the company’s business.

Sudarshan Venkatraman’s statement is not convincing at all having regard to the ground realities of heavy selling by Karvy & J. M. Financial.

Sudarshan Venkatraman preferred not to say why the promoters had borrowed so heavily by pledging the shares of Zylog. The borrowed funds have not been used for Zylog. So, what were they used for? Also what is the promoters current position? Do they have the funds to arrange for funding the margin requirements.

Investors who are tempted to dip their toes into Zylog must remember that the total shares sold during last year by Karvy, J. M. Financial and other lenders was only a fraction of the total shares pledged by the promoters. This year more no. of the pledged shares entered the market and the carnage took the share price to Rs. 14.

One of the important factor to look at is the % of pledged share by Promoters. This can make stock a risky bet if lenders decide to offload the shares like what Karvy and JM Financial did in case of Zylog Systems.

Saral Gyan Capital Services

Disclaimer: The articles published in www.saralgyan.in is for the personal information of the authorised recipient and is not for public distribution and should not be reproduced or redistributed without prior permission.

The information provided in the website is from publicly available data and other sources, which we believe, are reliable. Efforts are made to try and ensure accuracy of data however, Saral Gyan Capital Services shall not be liable for loss or damage that may arise from use of the published posts/comments in the website. The published articles are purely for information purposes and does not construe to be investment recommendation/advice or an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy/sell any securities. The opinions expressed are our current opinions as of the date appearing in the material and may be subject to change from time to time without notice.

Investors should not solely rely on the information contained in the website and must make investment decisions based on their own investment objectives, risk profile and financial position. The recipients of this material should take their own professional advice before acting on this information.